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Wednesday, May 30, 2007

A unique police constable

Malayala Manorama has the largest circulation among all vernacular newspapers in India – a whopping 1.5 million daily! This is not surprising – the paper invariably comes out with items of news value, human interest and popular appeal. An example is the feature it carried in its Sunday supplement of 27, May, about a woman police constable.

Now, women constables are nothing new. There are over 2500 of them in Kerala. But this lady who is attached to the Vattiyurkavu police station in the State capital Trivandrum is different. She is P.C. 2367, Dr. S. Anitha Nair – the only constable with a doctorate in the 42,000 strong State Police force! She is also a post graduate in Malayalam and a Bachelor of Education! Her doctoral thesis was ‘reviews of novels in the Malayalam magazines from 1960 to 1970’ – a tough one all right.

An academic as a police woman? Square peg in a round hole? Not at all. Dr. Nair was in need of employment and the police job was the first one that came her way. She has been discharging her police duties efficiently for the five years that she has been with the force and at the same time keeps pursuing her academic interests.

It is said that she is even changing the style of police language in First Information Reports and other submissions to the courts. She has been married for three yeas and has a one year old baby girl.

Dr. Nair won’t be with the police for long, though. Not that she doesn’t like the job. But she favors teaching better. She has been offered a college lecturer post and is waiting for the formal order.